“Look, I have done it!” she cried. “I am better than ever I was in my life. I am so happy. I like the cold. I like the country; I think it is beautiful! Call this England? it is Paradise! Oh, Liddy, Liddy, you dear little sister, I shall be as fond of you as Harry is—fonder, for he has me first to think of. I owe all this to you.”
“Mrs. Harry!” Liddy repeated, with consternation. “Father, this is Mrs. Harry; if you were coming, why did you not come with us?” She could think of nothing that was kinder to say.
But Rita was too much delighted with herself to stand in need of words of kindness. She walked up to Ralph Joscelyn, and stretched up to him, offering her pretty glowing cheek to be kissed.
“How do you do, father?” she said. “Harry ought to present me to you, but I don’t want any introduction. You are like him; our little boy is called Ralph, after you. Harry will be dreadfully angry when he sees me, and I dare not think what papa will say; but I am so happy to be in England that I don’t mind. Will you take me in, please, to where my husband is?” and with the air of a little princess Rita took her father-in-law’s arm. He was a stately, handsome old man, with his white hair. The eyes of the new-comer found no fault in him. The roughness which wounded his children was invisible to her. “He is almost as handsome as papa,” she said to herself.
Meanwhile Liddy, still more bewildered, stood at the door, and watched the approach of the two other persons, not glowing and happy like Rita, but miserable, as unaccustomed travellers, half dead after a succession of night journeys, cold, and sick, and out of heart, could be. She could scarcely recognise the spruce little Paolo, in the worn-out, fagged traveller, shivering in his big cloak, and trying in vain to satisfy the coachman with the money which he did not understand.
“Five shilling, that is six francs twenty-five, six francs twenty-five, my good man—it is six francs twenty-five, all the world over,” he was saying, placing a solid French five-franc piece, with other moneys of the same coinage, in the driver’s hand, and scorning all remonstrances. “No, no; I am no foreigner—you you will not cheat me. I am not von,” cried Paolo, betrayed by excitement into inaccuracies which he had quite got the better of, “to be bullied. I am not von to pay too moche. I am English as you.”
As for old Benedetta, who was the other companion of Rita’s journey, she was prostrate with cold and fatigue. She did nothing but weep and groan as she sank upon the first seat in the hall. “Ah, Signorina! oh, Signorina! Sono morto! sono morto!” she cried, while Paolo took off his hat, by this time somewhat battered, and smiled a forlorn smile, his teeth chattering as he spoke. “All things that have been spoken of the English climate are below the truth,” he said. “Miss Joscelyn will forgive me, I have the cold just in my bones; but Miss Joscelyn, and also, indeed, Signorina Rita, one is bound to say it, they bloom like the rose.”
“Now, don’t be angry,” said Rita, walking her father-in-law in to the parlour door, which was slightly open, and through which she saw the glimmer of the fire, and the white cloth of the breakfast-table, and appearing before her astonished husband, like some mischievous spirit, in a glow of happiness and delight, “don’t be angry, Harry. I am going to telegraph directly to papa. I am perfectly well, and delighted with everything. I am not cold a bit. I am not tired. England, I always was sure of it, is just the place for me. Present me to your mother. Dear madam,” she cried, after a little pause of contemplation, dropping Joscelyn’s arm, and darting forward, “I see you are ill; you are all trembling with the emotions you have had this morning. And, I am sure, it is quite natural; you don’t want me to make them more. But kiss me once, please, for I know I shall love you. I am your Harry’s wife.”
“Rita!” cried Harry, finding room at last to express his sentiments, “what, in the name of all that is foolish, brings you here?”
“Thank you, dear mother,” said Rita, in return for the astonished kiss which poor Mrs. Joscelyn had bestowed. She sat down by her without any invitation, and took one of her hands and caressed it between her own. “I never had any mother,” she said; “I do not know what it means; nor did I ever want one of my own, for papa has been everything to me. But it is sweet to borrow Harry’s mother, and have her for mine, too; not borrow,” she added, kissing Mrs. Joscelyn’s hand, “you are mine because you are his, is it not so? Harry, do not look so like a bear, but come and kiss me, too.”